CONSER Member reports

Oct. 2003 - Sept. 2004

Center for Research Libraries

The Center for Research Libraries continued innovations in technical services and overall during 2003/2004. Serials acquisitions and check-in operations were combined with cataloging under the direction of the Head of the Technical Services Dept., increasing workflow efficiency. Website restructuring improved the online catalog’s visibility to patrons.

As of September, the Cataloging Dept. authenticated 297 full level CONSER records among a transaction total of 583. It also processed 833 BIBCO and over 900 NACO transactions. PURLs are now regularly added to 856 fields in records with web links.

In addition to cataloging material from regular acquisitions and rushes or as part of the International Coalition of Newspapers Project and the Area Studies Microfilm Program, Dept. catalogers completed or nearly completed recon projects involving Ottoman Turkish language materials, Russian monographs, and foreign newspapers. The Dept.’s Dissertation Cataloging Project also cataloged 113,862 foreign doctoral dissertations this year, with the overall total cataloged now past 300,000.

Columbia

Since CUL successfully migrated ILS from NOTIS to Voyager last year, the Serials Cataloger has been involved with revising documentation for new serial workflow. In addition to rewriting procedures for the Serials Cataloging Unit, the Serials Cataloger also served on other teams: Cataloging, Serials, and the Departmental Catalog Maintenance Discussion Group. The Serials Team completed a subscription pattern project last year.

For the year 2004 budget, CUL has cancelled ca. 500 print journals and moved to ejournals only. The Serials Acquisitions Dept. is currently working on print journal titles to be cancelled for the year 2005 budget. CUL will move to e-only for the titles published by Sage, Springer and World Scientific, and will continue to cancel other print journals in 2005 and beyond.

We have greatly expanded the number of e-journal packages to ca. 100, and 3395 select titles in our contract with Serials Solutions last year Serials Solutions loads MARC records based on the CONSER paper record and updates the holdings for these e-journal packages. The total number of records is 25,737, including 16,828 for full records and 8,909 for brief records.

A significant change to highlight is that this is the first year that we have complete coverage in our SS agreement. First we only got the CONSER-based records, then we got Ulrich records and we recently added their in-house generated records. In all cases, CUL adds a few key fields, e.g., 710's to the records. This is a great improvement to have 100% coverage. Another major change is that we changed our record loading hierarchy. We used to prefer brief records to CONSER e-serial records.

When we started out, those records were so vendor specific (especially the OCLC First search records) that they were virtually unusable as they were so misleading in the OPAC. The aggregator neutral records or the increased number of matching online records is a great improvement.

The top priority for serials cataloging at CUL is cataloging those titles without any CONSER records, since ejournals are highly used by our patrons. Serials Cataloger will serve on the CONSER Task Force on the Coverage of Ejournals, due to CUL using Serials Solutions' records. The Serials Cataloger has been cataloging the titles for Hein Online, etc. since last year. Our Slavic Cataloger has cataloged Eastview titles since this year. We are pleased to have Everett Allgood working part-time CUL since mid-July cataloging ejournal titles without CONSER records and targeting stm packages.

A full-time Bibliographic Assistant was hired and has been working on RECON and offsite cataloging serials projects. Due to the increase in integrating resource cataloging, CUL is recruiting an IR Cataloger now and hopes to fill the position soon. Our Slavic Cataloger has been well-trained by the Serials Cataloger and has contributed CONSER records for Slavic materials regularly.

Harvard University

At Harvard, much of this past year was focused on capabilities offered by our LMS, additions of new functionality, including broader MARC 21 compliance, and the required training and workflow adjustments that are a part of such a process. In August, Harvard moved from Aleph version 16.01 to version 16.02. Detailed information about the upgrade can be found at:

http://hul.harvard.edu/ois/systems/aleph/index.html

As one of several Aleph customers using version 16.02, we anticipate sharing experiences with our colleagues.

Our CONSER contribution reflects the challenges and adjustment required of a changing work environment. This past year, our original input, first-time authentication, and maintenance to existing records was 2,345 titles.

In November 2003, Harvard welcomed Judith Kuhagen, from LC’s Cataloging Policy and Support Office, and Manon Theraux, Authority Control Librarian & NACO Coordinator, Yale University, who presented a three-day PCC Series Institute, Series Statements and Authority Records. This training was attended by cataloging staff representing libraries and programs from across the University. We want to extend our appreciation to Judy and Manon for undertaking this enthusiastically received training.

During the course of this past year, staff in the central CONSER Office was fully trained in the requirements of CONSER cataloging and with the structure of Harvard’s participation in the national program. In addition to overseeing Harvard’s involvement with CONSER, staff in the Office is responsible for the initial cataloging and continued maintenance of serial records for Harvard units that do not have local serial cataloging expertise. CONSER Office staff plays an important resource role in University-wide training, problem resolution, and helping to insure the integrity of serial data in our local catalog.

As electronic resources are added to the Harvard Portal, CONSER staff receives notification and disseminates the titles to appropriate units to provide access, linking information and identification in the HOLLIS catalog. Decisions about responsible units are based on resource stewardship, i.e. the unit initiating the acquisition of a resource, and subject expertise.

Harvard Law School Library reports the following activities. The East Asian bibliographer reports that there was a project to check in a large backlog of CJK serials; many were found that needed bib updates.
The serials catalogers have been involved in two projects which have resulted in updating/creating CONSER records: one, a reclassification project of current serial publications in the area of international law; the second, a project to move part of our foreign gazettes collection to remote storage.

Cataloging new acquisitions, a lot of bib updating for title changes etc., and adding online access for many serials has kept us very busy this year!

Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

We have compiled high CONSER statistics at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in the past year. Our statistics for 2003-2004 totaled 806, with 320 titles authenticated and 486 titles maintained. We also created 90 name authority records and enhanced 24 existing ones through our NACO authorization. A previously half-time serial and half-time monograph staff member turned full-time beginning April 2004. His primary responsibility is to catalog electronic serial titles.

During the past year, in addition to our routine workload, we cataloged over 700 e-journals from open access sources, e.g. Directory of Open Access Journals, PubMed, BioMed, etc. that are related to our academic programs. Several major serial cataloging projects were still in progress. They were the cataloging of the LexisNexis Academic Universe titles that began in April 2003, our Cavanaugh Serials Collection that began in August 2003, and the microform serials in our Goldsmiths'-Kress Library of Economic Literature collection that began in 2002. Apart from these, our staff also spent a great deal of time keeping up with the additions and changes in electronic journal aggregators and packages.

Other significant events for our library included the adoption of the OCLC Connexion and the Innovative Millennium cataloging module. Also, a cooperative effort had been initiated by our University Librarian in sharing cataloging manuals with the other university libraries in Hong Kong. Numerous pages of our cataloging manual were revised and made available for public access in August 2004.

Indiana University Libraries

In the past year, Indiana University Libraries successfully loaded more than 12,000 aggregator-neutral records for its electronic journal holdings into our OPAC. These records contain more than 32,000 separate URLs, preceded by the names of the libraries within the library system that hold them, including date ranges for issues held. Each month, records are added, updated, or deleted, based on information supplied by our acquisitions staff in a web-based A-Z list. With the aid of a list supplied to us by Serials Solutions, we have managed to supply the missing titles for many of our online aggregations, most notably Academic Search Premier. When we finish that aggregation, we plan to move on to others in the list.

Also within the past year, Indiana University Libraries successfully implemented the SFX article link resolver system-wide. In order to give our patrons better access to our print holdings for our online serial titles, we have added programming to perform an ISSN search of our local catalog based on data supplied from the SFX knowledge base. This has led to a project to “discover” ISSN for titles that currently lack ISSN in our local catalog. Most often, this consists of merely getting a fresh copy of the bibliographic record from OCLC which now contains the ISSN. If that is not successful, we then search the online version of Ulrich’s or consult the actual pieces. When that fails, we are compiling a list of needed ISSN for domestic serial publications for submission to NSDP.

We are continuing our efforts to select and transfer volumes to our Auxiliary Library Facility. The goal is to reach and maintain a fill rate of 7,000 volumes per week. Many of the titles selected for transfer have been older serial runs, especially those for which we already have electronic access to the volumes being transferred. We are also continuing our efforts to supply PURLs for non-SuDoc serial government publications that are universally accessible. We are pursuing the one-record approach whenever possible for these titles, supplying system-wide access for these titles in our ONLINE library. This is a much needed addition to the separate records supplied to us by Serials Solutions for our paid online journals either purchased separately or in aggregation. We are also continuing our participation in the CONSER Publication Pattern Initiative, supplying patterns for all print titles on subscription with a discernible publishing pattern.

Library and Archives Canada

1 July 2003-30 June 2004

CONSER Records Loaded:

Library and Archives Canada loaded 2,782 continuing resource records describing various formats to CONSER. Records describing electronic serials comprised 311 of this total. 93 existing records in the OCLC database were authenticated for the CONSER portion of the OCLC database.

Standards

In 2003/2004, LAC changed its policy with regard to the description and access given to ethnic community newspapers. Effective Aug. 2003, all ethnic newspapers published in Canada, in all formats, receive full level cataloguing and complete subject access.

Amicus and Canadiana

LAC’s bibliographic database Access Amicus is currently available free of charge on the Web. The Website is at http://amicus.collectionscanada.ca/aaweb/amilogine.htm

ISSN Canada

From 1 Apr. 2003-31 Mar. 2004, ISSN Canada provided 2,025 pre-publication ISSN’s to requesting Canadian serial publishers and registered 3,234 serials in the international ISSN database. Also, 3,322 records were revised.

Meetings

John Clark attended the CONSER Operations meeting and Liz McKeen attended the PCC Policy Committee meeting.

News

On 21 May 2004, the Library and Archives Canada was established by the amalgamation of the National Library of Canada and the National Archives of Canada. The National Librarian Roch Carrier retired on 26 May 2004 and is continuing his writing career. The National Archivist Ian Wilson became the Librarian and Archivist of Canada.

During 2004/05, three quarters of LAC employees will move to a new location, Place de la Cité in Gatineau, Québec. This location is next to the existing Archives Preservation Centre. Public access to the collections will still be maintained at LAC’s main building at 395 Wellington St. in downtown Ottawa.

Library of Congress

National Serials Data Program

2004 was a good year for NSDP and a good year for the ISSN. With ISSN assignments up significantly, more fully trained staff, and a growing awareness of the importance of the ISSN especially in the e-world. The revision of the ISSN standard will enable it to better take on new roles. Installation of a new computer system at the ISSN International Centre will allow for more timely distribution of U.S. ISSN assignments internationally and will allow NSDP staff and staff in other ISSN centers to work more efficiently and better coordinate ISSN assignments.

ISSN Production and registration

Between Oct. 1, 2003 and Sept. 30, 2004, NSDP assigned over 6,000 new ISSN, of which 20% were assigned to e-resources. This represents a 20% increase in production over last year, an especial accomplishment in light of NSDP’s assuming more LC cataloging work in FY04. During this year, the ISSN International Centre loaded a large backlog of U.S. records into the ISSN Register. ISSN are made available to the ISSN IC weekly.

Electronic Resources

U.S. libraries, including LC, are installing link resolver systems (e.g., SFX) as well as Electronic Resource Management Systems. ISSN are needed for titles in the knowledge bases of these systems. The Library of Congress purchased Ex Libris’s SFX system for OpenURL resolution and Innovative Interfaces’ Electronic Resource Management system. As data about subscriptions, e-resource access, and missing ISSN are gathered, NSDP will make or request ISSN assignments for the “missing” ISSN. NSDP began a project to assign ISSN to those resources identified by CONSER libraries needing ISSN to populate their SFX and ERMS knowledge bases. NSDP will report the assigned ISSN to the publisher and the libraries.

Weblogs (blogs) remain an issue. One blog publisher, angry about not getting an ISSN, wrote to his Congressman and to the Library, asking for records of all blogs that were assigned ISSN. There is no mechanism in ISSN records to identify them as representing blogs. At the ISSN Directors Meeting, Sept. 2004, a decision was made that personal blogs would be out of scope for ISSN assignment. A statement to this effect will be placed on the ISSN International Centre’s Web site.

Other ISSN-Related Activities

The contract between the Library and R.R. Bowker to locate a Bowker employee within NSDP to assign ISSN and create Ulrich’s records was amended to be ongoing until further notice. This employee continues to create ISSN records within NSDP and also to create Ulrich’s records for R.R. Bowker. An ISSN cataloger continued to work overtime for Asian Division and in the Manuscript Reading Room.

ISSN revision

The head of NSDP has been an active participant in the revision work, attending meetings in Paris and Amsterdam in 2004. She also surveyed various U.S. libraries to gain input for the revision, and has given presentations at NASIG and at several American Library Association meetings to update the U.S. library community on the revision work. She was awarded a travel grant (the Marcia Tuttle International Award) by NASIG (the North American Serials Interest Group) to help support her travel to ISSN revision meetings.

Library of Congress

Serial Record Division

Serial Record experienced a most successful year where we made strides in bringing backlogs to a very manageable level. Ongoing serial receipts on hand were at an all time low of approximately 5,000 allowing Processing & Reference staff to turn those materials around within ten days. Cataloging sections eliminated much of their backlog and are processing materials no older than a year. They have also achieved impressive strides in full cataloging within the division. We were able to do this due to a full complement of staff, the majority of whom have attained the highest level of their grade, have completed training requirements and are therefore operating independently. Staff are to be commended for their productiveness this year.

Learning the new and challenging e-serial cataloging plus training of new staff were significant factors in cataloging sections this year. Serial cataloging efforts focused on cataloging serials in different formats, notably in CD-ROM and electronic, and on increasing self-sufficiency in “whole serials.” The influx of new e-journals anticipated did not materialize due to reduced funds. Nonetheless, staff put their training in e-serials cataloging to good use cataloging over 700 e-serials and adding URLs to a significant number of print records. Subject cataloging received renewed emphasis in some sections which had heretofore had limited production in this area. They were able to maximize the subject expertise of several division staff in the training of others. An effort is underway to acquire the skills to complete legal serials within the division. A senior cataloger and senior cataloging technician received shelflist and subject training in Social Sciences Cataloging Division. In exchange they provided cataloging support to SSCD. Serial Record also continued to benefit from the assistance and expertise of colleagues in many of the Bibliographic Access divisions.

With the significant reduction of receipts in Processing and Reference (P&R), SRD managers concluded that the creation of the “check-in records” for new serial titles should be shifted from cataloging back to P&R where it had been done pre-ILS. This shift freed cataloging technicians’ time to handle copy cataloging thereby accomplishing a division and directorate goal of reducing the cost of cataloging.

Production

Cataloging’s total production figures of 13,545 for FY04 surpassed FY03 production figures of 12,230 by 11%. In this fiscal year, 5,785 titles received full cataloging, up by 36 % over FY03; 3,773 titles received descriptive cataloging, down by 17 %; and 2,070 titles received subject only work, down by 13 %. We are indeed heartened by the impressive rise in full cataloging and a trend we want to continue in FY05. Among the positive factors contributing to the division’s overall increase in cataloging statistics this year was the amount of copy available and the participation of cataloging technicians in copy cataloging. The proportion of copy cataloged records to original was 57% vs 43%.

OVOP Activities

SRD members were part of a cross-cutting team who worked with the Overseas Operations Office and the ILS Office to set up the Rio Office check-in project. The head of cataloging section I visited the Rio Field Office July 5-13 to provide training for a group of six Rio staff members in the areas of Voyager searching, check-in, publication patterns, holdings records, and creation of check-in components.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

A major development this year for the Serials Cataloging Section was the reorganization of the cataloging and acquisitions departments into Cataloging and Metadata Services (CAMS) and Acquisitions and Licensing Services (ALS), effective July 1, 2004. The main outcome of this reorganization was the reunification of serials and monograph cataloging sections after about twelve years in separate departments. Another outcome was the splitting of a support staff position across two departments into half-time serials cataloging in CAMS, and half-time digital resources management in ALS. All section members participated in the discussions leading to the reorganization and participated in the hiring process of the new department head of CAMS.

This year we successfully completed two multi-year projects. The first project involved cataloging electronic versions of United States government document serials (usually by adding holdings to the print or microfiche records). The e-versions were identified and reported to us by Dewey Library staff or by the Government Documents Unit. The second project was the final testing and loading of bibliographic records for over 700 titles in the Kluwer package into the OPAC, accomplished after 3 years of planning and many technical delays. This was our first experiment in machine-loading of MARC records for electronic serials that involved buying a set of MARC records from OCLC, making local changes, and overlaying title-specific information from Vera, the Libraries’ web-based listing tool for electronic journals and databases. Because the holdings information was inaccurate for a large percentage of the titles, we did a special quick project of checking and updating the holdings in the OPAC so that now all holdings are current.

Digital resource management activities continued to be a major responsibility for the section. A serials copy cataloger continued to work half time on quality control and systematic maintenance of Vera <http://libraries.mit.edu/vera>, and served as a member of the e-journals acquisitions team. The section met with this team several times this year to discuss and refine procedures and communication workflow.

With SFX in full production mode, the professional cataloger in charge of the KnowledgeBase continued to process the monthly updates, refine procedures and documentation, and work with Systems staff to solve problems. She also continued to work with Digital Acquisitions to refine procedures and communication workflow. She is also the primary person for solving problems identified by staff and users. In an effort to distribute the workload, she began training serials catalogers and acquisitions staff in the monthly update process.

The section also focused more attention this year on the retrospective conversion of DDC-classed serials in preparation for their remote storage. This is a long-term project that we hope to finish within the next two years. Towards this end, an open support staff position was redefined to be half-time serials copy cataloger and half-time DDC recon serials cataloger.

David Van Hoy, MIT’s representative on the Operations Committee, continued to serve as a member of CONSER’s group of e-serials specialists.

Jennifer L. Edwards continued to serve as Acting Head of the Serials Cataloging Section, while the search for a permanent replacement was put on hold pending a review of the current needs in CAMS and ALS. Ben Abrahamse was hired in April 2004 to fill the split cataloger/DDC recon position, an 18-month appointment.

National Agricultural Library

The National Agricultural Library did not participate in CONSER in FYO4. There were two primary reasons for this decision. First, the Voyager library management system was installed/implemented during the latter part of 2003. Between August 1 and Nov. 22 of last year, no new serial titles were processed by our Acquisitions and Serials staff.

Cataloging Branch staff didn’t begin to receive new serials to catalog until February or March of this year. Second, our long-time CONSER coordinator, Kathleen Dougherty, retired in January 2004.

NAL has advertised for a new CONSER coordinator and hopes to fill that position by December 1. Once a new coordinator is hired, we will once again begin doing CONSER authentication.

Sally Sinn retired as Associate Director for Technical Services on April 30. Her position was advertised once, but not filled. The position will be re-advertised around the middle of September 2004.

National Library of Medicine

2004 saw the retirement of both NLM’s Head of Cataloging, Christa Hoffmann, and the Chief of Technical Services, Duane Arenales. Becky Lyon is currently serving as Acting Chief of Technical Services and Alice Jacobs has been appointed as Acting Head of Cataloging.

Despite these major changes, the Cataloging Section has had a successful and productive year. This success is due to the availability of a full complement of cataloging staff and the fact that many catalogers have been cross-trained to handle both serials and monograph cataloging and can shift their duties as workloads require. In addition, NLM had two contracts for outside cataloging of English and Korean serials. Serials cataloging output increased 66% between FY 2003 and FY 2004.

NLM completed the programming for the SERHOLD-OCLC project. This service allows libraries to update their serial summary holdings in SERHOLD and have the corresponding local data records (LDRs) updated in OCLC's Union List Service via a quarterly batch program. It is also possible to update LDRs via OCLC's Union List Service and have the corresponding SERHOLD summary holdings records updated via a batch program that is run upon request. Cataloging Section also provided database maintenance services in both the NLM and OCLC databases to facilitate the matching of the NLM and OCLC bibliographic records for the same serial titles in support of the SERHOLD-OCLC project.

NLM was participant in the CONSER Summit, held Mar. 18-19, 2004 represented by Diane Boehr.

Gene Dickerson taught two sections of the SCCTP Basic Serials Cataloging Workshop; one for the University of Hawaii, Mar. 15-16, 2004, and one for CAPCON in Washington, DC, Aug. 25-26.

The NLM Classification 2004 was published on April 19, 2004 as scheduled and this publication cycle was the first time a fully revised edition has been published in less than one year. Also for the first time, canceled class numbers, identified within brackets, were included in normal sequence within the current schedules for information.

The NLM homepage was redesigned and pages on the site now include information about the permanence level of each resource and whether the contents and identifiers of those documents could change over time. Permanent resources with outdated content are moved to the NLM Archive. The archive is a separate but integral part of NLM’s main Web site. Searches on the NLM Website query the current site and the Archives at the same time but search results for current and outdated documents are clearly differentiated. Search results for archived documents must be accessed by clicking on a folder labeled “Archives” a branch of the main NLM Website.

As of August 2004, two of the NLM bibliographic products available for lease, CatfilePlus and Serfile, are available in XML as well as MARC21 format. Having bibliographic data available in XML format has allowed the creation of an alternative interface to NLM’s bibliographic records for serials, monographs, audiovisuals, computer software, electronic resources and other materials. This resource, called the NLM Catalog, was launched in Sept. 2004. It represents an alternative mode of searching the catalog, with the look and feel of the PubMed database, under the Entrez umbrella. The LocatorPlus interface is still available, and that is where NLM holdings and availability information may be found.

New York Public Library

CONSER activity at The Research Libraries of NYPL slowed down in the past year when the staff again became heavily involved with problem resolution for RECAP (our remote shelving facility). Staff are verifying holdings, and creating bibliographic records when none exist in our local catalog CATNYP. We create these records in OCLC and bring them into our catalog. Through August 2004, the serials staff contributed 320 original records and authenticated 113 existing records. We performed maintenance on 281 CONSER records, and 250 non-CONSER records. We created 130 name and series authority records. Other significant events for our library included the planning and training for migration to RLIN21, and Innovative Millennium cataloging module in the past couple of months. We anticipate moving over to OCLC Connexion by early 2005. The Research Libraries is in discussions with Casalini to begin supplying records this summer for Italian monograph publications we purchase.

To help out our Database Maintenance unit, one serial cataloger works half day reviewing reports from our authority vendor. The other half-day is spent on doing cataloging. Our budget situation is such that new catalogers are not being hired. In Sept. 2003, several staff members, attended the Integrating Resources Cataloging Workshop taught by Iris Wolley at Columbia University. Internally, several committees which include serial catalogers, have grappled with the role of cataloging in the digital environment. We need to provide access through the catalog to materials the institution has digitized. Dr. David Ferriero was selected as the next Andrew W. Mellon Director of The Research Libraries and began work September 1st. Evelyn Frangakis was appointed Aaron and Clara Greenhut Rabinowitz Chief of Preservation and began work on March 22nd. And finally, we appointed Stephen Corrsin as the Associate Chief of Acquisitions and he will arrive on September 13th. In addition, he will serve as the Acting Chief until a new Chief is hired.

Natalie Seweryn, our Chief of Acquisitions retired August 31, 2004.

New York State Library

This has been a year of planning and implementing change. Under the aegis of the State Librarian and Assistant Commissioner for Libraries, Janet Welch, the Research Library began a lengthy process of updating the Strategic Plan. The new plan, which has already been instituted, extends through 2006. All levels of staff were involved in the planning process. One result of this has been the reorganization of several units. The newly created Technical Services and Systems Unit is comprised of Acquisitions, Cataloging, Collection Preservation and Conservation, Computer Applications, Documents, the Document Distribution Center, and the New York State Newspaper Project.

After twenty-five years in our present home, the Research Library went through a major renovation of our facility. The public floor was redesigned and modernized. Staff work areas were also included in the updating. The library was able to stay open, providing service to our clients, during the entire time.

We have increased our accessibility in several innovative ways. Effective June 22, 2004, the Library instituted an expanded borrowing program for all New York State residents, 18 years and older. This program allows those registered to directly borrow items onsite from the circulating collection, as well as remote access to the NOVEL databases through the library's website. Also instituted this year was the "After Hours Reference Service" which grants access on a limited basis to reference librarians through a trial contract with the 24/7 Reference online service. Additionally, we have begun using a new digital media management system to enhance online, public access to our collection of electronic New York State documents. These documents are now available in PDF and users are able to browse or search the digital collections directly.

The past year saw massive relocation of library collections. Many of these collections were previously unclassified, and in classifying them, catalogers encountered many difficulties. Often, the titles had never been cataloged, and they were particularly challenging material to work with. The Cataloging Unit worked closely with Public Services staff and Preservation staff to ensure bibliographic access to these materials.

The Cataloging Unit has also eliminated backlogs in cataloging of local and state government documents as well as in serials cataloging. The serials cataloging was assisted by the use of non-CONSER staff. Other notable cataloging accomplishments were the completion of a project to create local records for the collection of broadsides, providing access to a previously inaccessible collection and the introduction of cataloging e-NYSDOCS, New York State documents available only in electronic form.

Northwestern

During fiscal year 2004 at Northwestern, much of the time of the serials catalogers was spent on inventorying and updating the online holdings records for thousands of journal backfiles moved to a "remote" storage facility (about a five-minute walk from the main library building). We have been encountering many various problems in our online holdings for these titles, and are aiming to have the record cleanup finished by the end of 2005.

The library recently implemented SFX and MetaLib. Until now we have used locally-created (automatic) Serials Solutions records to represent our aggregator collection e-journals in the OPAC. We will replace these with MARCit! records provided by Ex Libris, and have drafted some specifications for local processing of these new records to make them suitable for our database. We hope that successful application of these modifications will lead to similar processing of other special record sets.

During the spring and summer we have been trying out OCLC Connexion Client software to do our work on OCLC, and after hardware and operating system upgrades in our department the use of Connexion is expanding. We are hoping that exclusive use of Connexion will allow us to refine our workflow and increase CONSER productivity. A project we have for the coming year is the investigation of methods for filling gaps in our OCLC holdings. A significant portion of the titles we held prior to joining OCLC in 1990 were never matched up with OCLC records, and we never input LDRs. Recently our Interlibrary Loan Dept. began inputting LDRs based on their lending transactions and reports of recent serials cataloging activity. We are hoping to use a computer program to find matches on OCLC for many of our local records, and we will supply OCLC with a file of our complete serial holdings (for all of the records that are identified by OCLC number, that is) so LDRs can automatically be created and updated regularly.

Texas A&M University, College Station

I regret to report that 2003/2004 was a difficult time for the Serials Unit at Texas A&M General Libraries. Due to careful and clever management by our Dean, Dr. Heath, the national economic malaise did not affect us as quickly as other institutions, but in 2003 the impact was at last felt at Texas A&M. Vacancies in technical services due to transfers and retirements were frozen, halving the serials paraprofessional staff, while the 2nd professional serials cataloger in charge of e-serials was reassigned to the Digital Library Initiative. Remaining staff have attempted as best possible to cover the unit’s functions (serials in all formats and language, e-resources, holdings, series authorities, and serial/series record maintenance), but production for the year is abnormally and abysmally low, as we are stretched too thin for the amount of material and functions we must cover.

In an effort to survive the staff reduction by increasing efficiency, during the summer the serials backlog as been organized and reordered following the backlog organizational schema in use at Pitt in the late 1990s. Furthermore, serials acquisitions staff have been trained to weed out and process new serial titles with CONSER records upon receipt, so that only records requiring modification or original cataloging come to the Serials Cataloging Unit.

The future is looking brighter, and I expect to accelerate our contributions in 2004 as the economic situation has fortunately improved. One paraprofessional position has recently been filled, and another is currently being advertised. Another professional cataloger, Kai Yu, has been hired as of Sept. 1, and while currently undergoing training in monographs, it is expected she will transfer to the serials unit within 6 months.

United States Government Printing Office

United States Government Printing Office. During FY 2004, GPO has continued to reorganize as part of its effort to improve public access to federal government information. As part of this reorganization, the Government Printing Office established an Office of Bibliographic Services with two sections, Bibliographic Control and Bibliographic Support. The Office of Bibliographic Services and its sections have replaced GPO's former Cataloging Branch. This spring Laurie Beyer Hall was appointed Director, Office of Bibliographic Services. In August, Jennifer K. Davis was appointed Manager, Bibliographic Control Section, and Linda M. Resler was appointed Coordinator, Bibliographic Support Section. In September, Bobbie Carr was appointed Manager, Bibliographic Support Section. Both Ms. Beyer Hall and Ms. Davis began their careers at GPO as serials catalogers. Jennifer cataloged serials at the Library of Congress before returning to GPO as a Cataloging Branch section chief. Ms. Carr began her career at GPO as a monograph cataloger and had experience as a supervisor before jointing GPO. Ms. Resler began her GPO career as a depository inspector and had experience as a cataloger before joining GPO. During the past several years, Laurie has led a successful effort to select and procure an ILS. We procured Ex Libris Products (Aleph 500 and MetaLib SFX) and we expect to go live with our OPAC in April 2005. Jennifer is leading planning efforts that will soon result in GPO’s assignment of Library of Congress Classification numbers to congressional documents we catalog that are classed in the KF schedule. She is also working with Regina Reynolds, Library of Congress, Serial Record Division, National Serials Data Program Section, to make certain that all serial publications that are sold as subscriptions are assigned ISSN numbers.

A newly established Office of National Bibliographic Program Planning has drafted preliminary plans for a comprehensive catalog containing the description and locations of unclassified federal government documents in all formats. Traditional catalog records, including both AACR and AACR2 records, and various kinds of other metadata records will be included in this catalog. During fiscal year 2004, GPO authenticated 2001 new serial records for CONSER and 384 existing serial records for CONSER. In additional, 2182 CONSER records and 122 non-CONSER records were updated for other reasons.

University of California, Los Angeles

Statistics
Between October 2003 and August 2004, UCLA contributed 611 original records (up 119% from last year!) and 99 authenticated records to CONSER. UCLA completed maintenance on another 335 CONSER records. In all, this represents about a 1.75% increase over last year’s contribution.

PCC-Related Activities

This year, Cindy Shelton began her term as CONSER Representative to the PCC Policy Committee.

Meetings: Cindy Shelton and Valerie Bross participated in the CONSER Summit held Mar. 18-19, 2004.

SCCTP: Rhonda Lawrence and Valerie Bross both participated in the SCCTP program. Valerie Bross co-presented with Julie Su the Advanced Serials Workshop in Fullerton, California, June 2-3, 204. Rhonda Lawrence co-presented the Integrating Resources Workshop in conjunction with the annual meeting of the American Association of Law Librarians, July 9-10, 2004.

CONSER Review: This past year, UCLA CONSER catalogers John Riemer, Valerie Bross, and Cheri Folkner enjoyed working with Peter Fletcher at Tulane University. We congratulate Peter on achieving independence!

Committees: John Riemer continued his participation in the Third PCC Task Group on Journals in Aggregator Databases. Luiz Mendes was appointed to the PCC SCT Task Group to Update Integrating Resources Documentation and Training Materials. Valerie Bross was appointed to the CONSER URI Task Group.

Other News

UCLA Library migrated from DRA Taos/DRA Classic to Endeavor Voyager this summer. The library is now in the process of post-migration follow-up.

University of Chicago Library

Our CONSER cataloging statistics are up this year. From Oct. 2003 through Aug. 2004 we authenticated 134 Full/Core original records and 1 MLC original record, for a total of 135 original records. This compares with 88 original records last year. We also authenticated 29 Full/Core existing records, which is exactly the same number that we did last year. In addition, we did subsequent authentication on 3 Full/Core records, compared to zero last year.

Our CONSER maintenance statistics are up a great deal from last year. We made changes to 496 authenticated records and to 352 non-CONSER records. This compares with 61 changes to authenticated records and 33 changes to non-CONSER records for last year. The main reason for this large increase in maintenance is that we have cataloged a large number of titles on the DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals) list. If we had a print version of the title, we just added the URL to it.

However, if we did not have the print version, we cataloged the electronic version as an electronic resource. If there was copy in OCLC which did not have a PURL, we created a PURL, added it to the record in OCLC and then used the record. If there was no copy in OCLC for the electronic version but there was copy for the print version, we derived an electronic version record from the print version record. We created PURLs for these and added them to the electronic version record that we had created, as well as to the original print version record.

The DOAJ project also helped our statistics for original authentication because when we derived an electronic version record from the print version record, we authenticated the electronic version record if the print version record had already been authenticated. If other records had to go to an original cataloger because of problems with the records, those records were authenticated as well. In addition, if there was no copy in OCLC for either the electronic or print version, the title was cataloged by an original cataloger, who authenticated the record.

Renette Davis has been involved in 2 task groups this year - the CONSER URI Task Group and the PCC SCT Task Group to Update Integrating Resources Documentation and Training Materials. The URI Task Group is exploring the CONSER Summit recommendation that CONSER accommodate OpenURL linking in PCC records and is examining the possibility of including DOIs in CONSER records. The Task Group to Update Integrating Resources Documentation and Training Materials is looking at and revising Integrating Resources: A Cataloging Manual, which is Appendix A of the BIBCO Participants' Manual, and the SCCTP Integrating Resources Cataloging Workshop.

University of Florida

In spite of the rigors of a system migration to Ex Libris’s Aleph, we are pleased to note an increase of over 13% in our total contributions over last year. We were able to increase both our maintenance and record contribution statistics over last year’s totals. These contributions came primarily from our regular cataloging workflow, rather than any grants or other special projects.

Naomi Young helped the state universities’ Cataloging and Access Guidelines for Electronic Resources Committee (CAGER) schedule two SCCTP Electronic Serials Cataloging workshops in December. She also continued work on the Task Force on FRBR and Continuing Resources, and helped moderate a discussion at the Operations Committee Meeting that led to the formation of the Task Force on Coverage of E-serials.

In July, the personnel of the Serials Cataloging Unit were dispersed into other units of the Technology Services Division as part of a larger reorganization. In the weeks ahead, using the SCCTP Basic and Advanced Serials Cataloging Courses, Naomi will be giving serials cataloging instruction to selected staff in the subject-oriented cataloging units. This will increase the number of higher-level paraprofessionals and librarians able to create original records and authenticate cataloging copy. We hope this will lead to an increase in original record contribution.

University of Georgia

The Serials Cataloging Section, along with staff from the Serials Department, received a UGA Libraries ASSET award for their work on a large print-to-electronic conversion project. Effective January 2004, the Libraries cancelled print subscriptions to approximately 1,200 titles in favor of electronic only subscriptions. Serials Cataloging staff helped the Serials Department by importing records so that orders could be attached. We then cataloged 1,579 electronic serials. This was a great way for us to learn the application of the Aggregator Neutral guidelines! Because of this project our CONSER maintenance statistics through August exactly doubled from last year (2002/2003 was 1021; 2003/2004 was 2042). Other cataloging statistics through August 2004 are: Original records: 64; Authentication of existing records: 1003. Each and every member of Serials Cataloging worked hard on this project, including our new Serials Cataloger Sophie Dong, who began in Sept. 2003 and began learning electronic serials very soon thereafter. We are already starting to do title changes and other maintenance on these records. We continue to catalog print resources but electronic serials have definitely established a presence over the past year.

Our holdings unit continues to contribute maintenance statistics for frequency changes and participate in the Patterns Project. This year (through August) we added 60 new patterns, 125 subsequent patterns, and modified 99 patterns.

The University of Georgia rolled out SFX in the spring of 2004. Beth Thornton attended SFX training in August 2004, though maintenance of the knowledgebase takes place in the Serials Department.

Finally, staff computers in the Cataloging Department have been upgraded to Windows XP. We have begun cataloging on OCLC’s Connexion client, while still using Passport for NACO work.

University of Maryland

Carlen Ruschoff served as Chair of the Program for Cooperative Cataloging in FY 2004. Carlen also is Chair of the CONSER Task Force on Publication Patterns and Holdings. Carlen and Jean Hirons (the former CONSER Coordinator) initiated and organized the CONSER Summit on Serials in the Digital Environment held in Alexandria, Virginia, March 18-19, 2004. Jeanne Baker and Hien Nguyen taught the SCCTP Advanced Serials Cataloging Workshop at the Library of Virginia in Richmond on Nov. 18-19, 2003. Jeanne is scheduled to teach this workshop with Louise Rees (University of Pennsylvania) for PALINET on Dec. 2-3, 2004. Jeanne is a member of the CONSER Task Force on Publication Patterns and Holdings Workflow Task Group. She is also a member of the Task Force’s newly formed subgroup that will maintain its Appendix A: Abbreviations for Captions. Beth Guay serves on the PCC Standing Committee on Automation’s Task Group on Linking Entries that is currently writing its final report.

University of Oregon

University of Oregon (UO) currently has 2.5 FTE of catalogers who contribute to the CONSER database, down from 3 FTE last year. Our total number of CONSER transactions for FY2004 was 770. This includes 528 authentications (of which 113 were minimal-level) and 242 maintenance transactions. We have created and maintain 165 PURLs and continue to take part in this effort. Mary Grenci, UO's Serials Team Leader and Metadata Librarian, is an SCCTP trainer and continues to give the Basic Serials Cataloging Workshop as requested. In the last year, Mary has also served on the Membership Task Force and is currently serving on the Task Group on non-AACR2 records.

At this time last year, UO had just implemented SFX. In fall 2003 and winter 2004 we spent a great deal of time getting used to the system, fixing things and integrating the updating of SFX into our e-journal workflow. In addition to inputting our electronic journals, we also loaded in holdings information for our print periodicals at the request of our Inter-Library Loan Dept. We plan to keep SFX print holdings relatively current by re-loading new holdings information once or twice a year. E-journal cataloging policy and procedures have not changed as a result of implementing SFX.

Serials catalogers are involved in UO efforts that are not specifically related to serials, the most important being our Digital Library Collections. Staff from all units within Metadata and Digital Library Services are involved in this ongoing effort. Serials staff assist in providing descriptive metadata for images found within these collections.

University of Texas at Austin

This year’s CONSER productivity was the highest ever for the University of Texas, thanks to the much increased participation of the general serials cataloging unit, and to the continuing grant-funded project to microfilm and catalog Mexican newspapers.

That project, which is almost complete, created full-level CONSER cataloging for 19th century Mexican newspapers and the three generations of microfilm produced. It tied in nicely with our in-house project to catalog all other Latin American newspapers, a project which was completed after almost 10 years of effort in August 2004.

Another long-term cataloging project, this one for the Latin American anarchist and labour periodicals, 1880-1940, was also completed in summer 2004. Texas worked cooperatively with Michigan, Cornell and Harvard to create CONSER records for the 1100+ titles on this huge microfilm set.

University of Washington

The Serials Cataloging Section in the University of Washington Libraries saw several staffing changes during the year. Caroline Marsh was upgraded to a Library Specialist I copy cataloger mid-December; Clairann Schickler retired after 30+ years of cataloging serials, the last couple of years for titles in the Pacific Northwest Collection and also health science titles; Alan Grosenheider (cataloging South Asia and Thai serials) also left in June. The gain in a copy cataloger will not offset the loss of original catalogers for Special Collections and health science titles and language expertise for South Asia and Thai materials. In August 2004, Steve Shadle took on a new assignment as Serials Access Librarian, though he will continue cataloging serials.

Partly as a result of the loss of a retrospective conversion technician the previous year (due to Caroline’s upgrade to a copy cataloger), a new approach was taken to upgrading some of our older records loaded from WLN in the mid-1980s. Approximately 9000 titles were reconned through matching on OCLC number through OCLC’s CatMe in less than a week’s time of record matching and some necessary clean-up resulting from record deletions in OCLC.

Electronic journals continued to remain a significant focus in the section, with approximately 500 electronic titles cataloged, the largest package being PubMed Central. Many other titles were ‘cataloged’ using the single-record approach, a true time-saver for the section. Staff in Serials Cataloging and elsewhere in the library continued to work with Serials Solutions data as a primary source of bibliographic and holdings data for electronic serial titles. By the end of June, we implemented Innovative Interface’s Millennium Silver and incorporated Serials Solutions holdings data into WebPAC. We continued to contribute URLs to the CONSER PURL resolver, with 32 PURLs added and 26 PURLs modified over the course of the year. In total, 148 PURLs are being maintained by UW Serials Cataloging out of 7,432 PURLs in the resolver.

Steve Shadle contributed to the work of several CONSER task forces: Electronic Serials Expert Group; Publication Patterns Initiative Task Force to Explore the Needs and Uses for Holdings and Pattern Data for Electronic Journals; Summit on Serials in the Digital Environment Steering Group; Task Force on Coverage of E-Serials; and the URI (Uniform Resource Identifier) Task Group. He also published two articles: one with Les Hawkins, column ed. “Reflections on wrapping paper: random thoughts on AACR2 and electronic serials,” Serials Review, 30, no. 1 (2004): 50-55; and one with June Garner and Maria Collins, “The very model of a minor/major change: a current look at serials cataloging title change rules,” Serials Review, 30, no. 2 (2004): 90-100.

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